German 6th Army

The German Sixth Army was a field army of the German Wehrmacht which was formed on 10 October 1939 at the start of World War II. The army had a strength of 285,000 troops at its height, and Walther von Reichenau led the army in the invasions of Poland and France and the advance into the Soviet Union before his dismissal on 29 December 1941. He was replaced by Friedrich Paulus, and the Sixth Army would be encircled and destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942-early 1943. On 5 March 1943, the army was recreated, and it took part in the fighting in the Balkans and Hungary against the Soviet Red Army during Operation Barbarossa. By the end of March 1945, the army was retreating towards Vienna in Austria, and the army surrendered to the US Army on 9 May 1945 at the end of the war.